November 17, 2025 • 43 mins
Bloomberg’s Caroline Hyde discusses the move by Peter Thiel’s hedge fund to sell its holdings in Nvidia and its stock impact ahead of earnings. Plus, the crypto market selloff shows no signs of easing, and some of the riskiest tokens are bearing the brunt of it. And Amazon is seeking to raise about $12 billion through a debt offering, amid an industry-wide race to build AI infrastructure.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Bloomberg Tech is live
from coast to coast with Caroline Hyde in New York
and Eva Though in San Francisco.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
This is Bloomberg Tech coming up.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
In Vidia selloff, SoftBank isn't the only company exiting the
AI MVP as a shareholder. Peter Teal's hedge fund offloads
its entire position.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Details from a thirteen F filing, plus a crypto market
sell off shows.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
No sign of easing and some of the riskiest tokens.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
They're bearing the brunt of it.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
And Amazon is seeking to raise about twelve billion dollars
through a debt offering an industry wide race to build
AI infrastructure.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
But first we check in on the markets that have
been under pressure.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
We are once again questioning AI valuations. We're checking some
of the biggest winners and whether or not we're taking
money off the table. We're off flat on the day
on the NASAK one hundred. More broadly, but it's been
a volatile session thus far, as we've tried to dissect
who wins from some of the purchases, Alphabet being key
among them, and who's being sold off. Let's just dig
into some individual movers that I want to shine a
light on because thirteen f filings they tell you an awful
(01:12):
lot who is being bought. Alphabet is being backed by
Berkshire Hathaway. We're up five percent, a significant move that
helps them as that one hundred more broadly be training
flat even though sentiments seems to be shifting to the downside.
Sentiment on the downside. For a video ahead of its
earnings later this week, we understand that another key investor
that everyone watches this one Peter Teel of loading his
(01:34):
entire holding from his macro fund his hedge fund in
in video. We want to get to both of these
key stories because the Teal macro fund, as we know,
has been one that we really do focus in. At
the moment, it does still hold onto Microsoft and a
reduced stake in Tesla we understand as its main bets
all according to that filing, we want to dig into
it with a hedge fund. Reporter Emma Palmer, Now, look,
(01:57):
this is someone that we always follow. Peter Teel made
his foun by backing meta artists formally known as Facebook,
and now he takes key bets on publicly traded companies.
But while offload one hundred million dollars worth of Nvidia.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Yes, it's especially interesting given how concentrated his portfolio is
really only four or five stocks, So when we see
a rotation in this portfolio, it holds a lot of meaning,
even though the position itself was only about one hundred
million dollars, which in our hedge fund world isn't that
much when we look at the exposure, So you know,
this may be a reflection of a lot of the
cautions and concerns that we're seeing around the AI space. Valuations,
(02:34):
the amount of money that's just flooding into the space,
concerns people have about the circular nature of investments and
money in this industry, and so this could be an
expression of that. Typically, when you see a concentrated portfolio
and a shift that's notable, like editing a position entirely,
then it often suggests a directional and concerning What's.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Interesting, though, is that the overall fund in terms of
deployed money into equities gone from an excess of two
hundred million down to about only about seventy million currently deployed,
and we understand the coll so that he is still
making big bets on startups. We just had Substrate on
a couple of weeks ago, the CEO that he's now
backing to take on ASML and take on some of
the chip design and equipment makers in particular Hammer. So
(03:18):
do we think in similarity to SoftBank they exited five
point eight billion dollars worth of Nvidia, but that was about.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Having money to be able to reallocate other areas the
AI ecosystem.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
So when we look at these startup investors, you know,
they put a lot of money into the pre IPO space,
into these companies before they make a lot of their
gains post IPO, and so you know how they think
about the startup space and then how they think about
the public market space could be expressed a little bit
differently when we look at SoftBank, to your points, they
did make that rotation to invest more into open AI.
(03:52):
So the thirteen f's give us some clarity and how
these money managers think and what they do, but really
doesn't show us everything. It doesn't show us intention now,
it doesn't show us shorts, and it doesn't show us
other types of hedges against a position. So we do
have a limited point of view. We'll take that because
hedge ferns are so secretive and so private. But it
is somewhat of a very specific insight.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Great context.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
What is the context around Alphabet and the buying by
Boatsha Hathaway.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Yes, so when we look at Alphabet, a huge position
for them eighteen million dollars eighteen million shares worth about
five billion dollars as of the end of the third quarter.
Now that means it is the tenth biggest holding for
Berkshire Hathaway. Sizeable, but it also gives you a sense
of just how much money this firm puts to work.
Its biggest holding is still Apple. They did trim that
(04:43):
steak by fifteen percent, but it still holds about a
quarter of the portfolio exposure. So it's likely less of
a directional view, perhaps more of a rotation of the
portfolio to manage its exposure. But when we see a
brand new position and a one like in Alphabet Google,
then it does suggest that there might be you know,
(05:05):
a lot of bullishness as to that stock.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Love having the hedge fun perspective from your hammer across
our world of Techema Palmer, we appreciate it. Meanwhile, all
eyes on in video fundamentals as a company reports earnings.
On Wednesday, Chris Larkin over e Trade from Augustanley, saying
that the monthly jobs report would normally dominate the week's
economic calendar, but with the AI trade struggling the past
couple of weeks, in Video's earnings and once again looking
(05:28):
like a key piece of the market's momentum, puzzle here
to break it down in King, because look, we can
see companies and hedge funds maybe selling their entire holdings
of Invidio, but the fundamentals look pretty strong right now.
In it seems yeah.
Speaker 5 (05:43):
I mean, as you know, Caroline, we just had a
chat with Jensen in Washington a short time ago, and
what he was saying that that conference was like, hey,
I've got half a trillion dollars with the vorders coming
in the next few quarters. So on a fundamental basis,
at least from his perspective, thing to see here everything
is is kind of still heading up into the right.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
I mean extraordinary. We're anticipating what fifty five billion dollars
worth of overall sales coming on the quarter. In there
is areas where we could perhaps get a bit more granularity,
whether it's concentration of certain end users, but also whether
we're going to get any access to China.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
Yeah, I mean the concentration thing. They keep giving us
a number, and it hovers around sort of fifty percent
of their revenue at least for the data center business
coming from sort of Microsoft, Amazon and that sort of
those hyperscalers. I think investors would like to see that
number go down as a percentage and see that AI
was being spread throughout the economy. And as you mentioned
(06:42):
in video, keeps saying, look, we're not banking anything from China.
We still don't know how the geopolitics is going to
work out, but he has.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Been very clear on the opportunity of sovereign AI more broadly, so,
do you think you'll get more of a global perspective
there of other end users, whether it be governments or
whether it be other enterprises.
Speaker 5 (07:00):
Yeah, I mean, I think we've heard the sales pitch
over and over again. He's very good at the sales pitch,
as you know. And we've also seen a lot of
deals announced here there, and you know, Jensen's been all
over the world and that's all good, that's all trying
to create the sense of progress, but I think what
investors would like to see is that kind of translating
into something in terms of revenue that rivals one of
(07:22):
his big customers such as Microsoft, such as AWS such
as Meta Ian King.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Thank you very much. It's gonna be a busy week
as always for you.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Meanwhile, let's get the broader tech forew as investors, of
course are gearing up for a videos results this week.
Ja Jacobs is with US Blackrock, head of US equity ETFs.
You've had some phenomenal success with certain of the ETFs
you've offered this year alone in terms of actively managed
AI bets in video a key holding. How much of
an impact will it make on general sentiment do you think?
Speaker 6 (07:51):
I don't think there's going to be a ton of
change in sentiment based offf of short term earnings or
just any individual company. We see a lot of our
investors looking at artificial intelligence has just a long term
transformational theme that they want in their portfolios. Oftentimes this
is being funded by selling out of the tech sector
and allocating to AI. So frankly, for a lot of investors,
they haven't met changed their position in the mag seven.
(08:13):
They're just extending to get a broader exposure to the
entire artificial intelligence value chain.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
In the last couple of weeks, we have seen more
anxiety though, and you've seen downward pressure on some.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Of the biggest AI winners.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
JAY. Has that changed any of the types of conversations
you're having.
Speaker 6 (08:31):
No, I mean, we've continued to see inflows and to BAI,
which is our actively managed AI fund, and I think frankly,
a fair amount of investors out there have frankly been
looking for a buy the dip opportunity. They've seen this
trade continue with so much momentum over a couple of years.
Now that we're on basically the third year anniversary of
chat GBT coming out, a lot of investors have been
looking for a little bit of a buying opportunity to
(08:52):
get into the AI trade.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
What, therefore, are.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Some of the conversations you're having in terms of nuance,
because the nuance is constantly changing. Initially it was all
about return on AI. Then it was about whether or
not enterprises are really using them effectively, whether the pilots
are working. What are the types of conversations that you're
having about to the upside down the downside when it
comes to your actively managed AI trade.
Speaker 6 (09:14):
Well, we're seeing a lot of investors ask about kind
of what's going on beyond the MAG seven. There's been
a fair amount of discussions about data centers, about power infrastructure,
about some of the early adopters and artificial intelligence. So
a lot of that nuance is really about looking across
the entire value chain for opportunities, not just concentrating all
of the activity around the MAG seven.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
So when you're looking at BAI, I think it's about
seven billion dollars in active in assets under management there
where are they managing to play out the entirety of
the AI trade Because, as you say, much of the
value has been gained in AI infrastructure bets, but that's
broadening out now, Well, that's right.
Speaker 6 (09:51):
I think a lot of the exposure is looking at
that AI infrastructure trade that's semiconductors, but really broadly looking
across the semiconductor spectrum, that's looking at data centers. We
have some power infrastructure names in the fund. I think
as we continue to see AI evolve, it's going to
move from this CAPEX heavy infrastructure build out into more
of the models that are generating revenue. As you see
(10:12):
more adoption and I think we're starting to see that
in some of the earnings now about how many tokens
are being processed by some of the largest large language models.
That we're seeing a lot more companies talk about adopting
AI and their business practices. So I think over time,
over the next couple of years, we will see a
shift in the positioning from the infrastructure layer to the
model's data and applications layer of the AI value chain.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
When though you do hear headline risk SoftBank selling its
entire stake and Nvidia, Peter Tel Macro Funds selling its
entire steak and in Vidia, do you suddenly get a
load more calls? Do you suddenly get a little bit
more of a questioning of the circularity of deals that
we've had of late.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
No, that hasn't been the case.
Speaker 6 (10:55):
And I think it's because you can look at kind
of the near term noise about who's buying or selling
or some you know, very short term earnings. The long
term trend of this theme has only been gaining stem
and so I think a lot of our investors really
look at it as has there been a structural shift
here or not? And oftentimes if you're looking at thirteen
f filings or just headlines. It could just be repositioning
(11:16):
within the value chain. It doesn't represent a lesser bet
on artificial intelligence as a whole. So we continue to
have a ton of conviction. Our clients have not been
terribly concerned about headlines. It's really about kind of the
continued adoption of artificial intelligence that's been driving so much
of the interest in this fond Okay.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
So maybe a buying opportunity. What about some of the
cellar that you've seen in crypto. Of course significant flows
have come into your ETF when it comes to the
Bitcoin exposure, but that's come back of late. It must
be said, how is that feeling sentiment wise?
Speaker 6 (11:48):
You know, kind of similar. I mean this fond ibid
is still up nearly double since we launched it just
last January, so I think, you know a lot of
early people are still quite excited. And then what's been
changing is there's been growing of availability of ibit. So
some of the major wealth platforms in the United States,
which represent trillions of dollars of assets, have just enabled
their advisors to be able to buy ibit, and so frankly,
(12:10):
for a lot of people who are just getting into
the ecosystem. They're quite thrilled that they get to be
able to get in off of highs as they start
to think about allocating as a more structural position in
people's portfolios.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Jjks a black Root. Great to check in with you,
Thank you very much. Indeed, today, who are coming up? Well,
we're just talking about crypto. It's supposed to be crypto's
year with an administration in the White House that was
more friendly to it. So why is it the digital
coins have been foiling? We'll have more on that next.
Will just check in on Amazon. We're going cross asset
for you because we're down one point nine percent on Amazon.
(12:43):
But that's the equity trade. The fact is it's selling
a six part bond sale. At the moment, it's first
US delominated sale in at least three years, up to
twelve billion dollars worth forty year debt.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Are just a percentage point.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Also over where theoretical US treasuries are trade. They're cashing
in on the debt market, looking to put into data centers.
It would seem from New York there's a Bloomberg tech.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Crypto. It's in sell off mode.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Still, we're currently off for the month thirteen percent. On Bitcoin,
it's down twenty five percent thereabouts from its highs of
one hundred and twenty six thousand dollars where it hit
back in October. Ethereum, as you see, has been held
harder off by twenty percent. And look the smaller crypto Dogecoin,
which of course was initially set up as a joke,
it's also down fifteen percent in the last month alone,
(13:33):
as people start to question really whether we can hold
on to the gains and certainly some of the leverage
that's been built into the system. Let's talk about all
of this with Blue Moost crypto reporter Miaoshen. Now, what
is it that is driving the selling and the sentiment
lower because we all thought the administration's adoption of crypto
(13:54):
in many ways would just continue the asset classes rise.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 7 (13:59):
I think what we're seeing today in the crypto market
is that it's still recovering from what happened in October,
where we saw this larger liquidation event happened in the
crypto If you look at like both institutional and retail investors,
we haven't seen any large firms coming out saying they
had any blow up and stuff like that. But it
does feel like sound trading shops, smaller ones might have
(14:21):
some issues. You can see that from the open interests
of perpetual futures market in crypto. The open interests hasn't
really recovered since the market crash in October. That tells
me something about sound trading shops may have had issues.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Yes, I mean, remind us what happened was October the
nineteenth thing? It was ever the course of a weekend,
just an awful lot of leverage got pulled out the
system because a sudden jarring move in cryptom and everyone
then had this sort of well they were margin called.
It would feel like, yes, why would we not have
heard of certain blow ups? So what could have therefore
been more broadly making everyone more nervous about training that's
(14:55):
going forward.
Speaker 7 (14:57):
I think we saw the number Obviously, the larger liquidation
numbers are in history. I think a couple of reasons
point into that. Obvious retailers are looking more leverage in
the space. That's why we're seeing more sort of like
cruidations events. The other thing, I think previously both most
of the future's tradings are happening on centralized exchanges like
(15:17):
finance and coin bits, right, so we can really tell.
So sometimes these numbers are more like murky. You don't
know exactly what happens when large liquidation events happen. But
today a lot of these tradings happens on Chin on
the blockchain directly, so there's more transparency. So the numbers
tend to look much bigger than previous cycles.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
I think we're looking at certain atf flows.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
They've been more than fifty billion since their creation, but we'
seen about two billion pulled out in the last couple
of months.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Where we think the most pain is it in bitcoin?
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Is it the larger areas or is it some of
the more sunning, riskier core old coins that have been
traded and whipsored a little harder?
Speaker 7 (15:53):
I think for sure from auto coins perspective, because you
can see that from the prices action, right, Like you
mentioned about those core not just doagecoin other like cryptocurrencies.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
During the market.
Speaker 7 (16:03):
Crash in October, sun Tooken's went down to almost zero,
which is crazy to think about, right. I think that
hurts especially retail investors because retail investors are those who
tend to buy a lot of auto coins, and they
got wiped out from that market crash, and right now
you just don't see a lot of demand from these
auto coins.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
But people are still buying, Like we just had J
Jacobs and Black Croc saying for many a pullback in
certain of their ets means people actually buy into it.
I'm seeing Michael Saylor, I mean obviously og crypto buyer
and treasury stocker upper of he's doubled down on.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
His digital asset treasury.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
It feels like so is he making the most of
lower bitcoin prices.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
I think it's a two different source.
Speaker 7 (16:43):
Right We're talking about the micro strategy micro sailors like
Bitcoin sort of like buyers, and then we have the
auto coin buyers. I think we need to separate this
to as to like driving forces. I think all the
bigcoins like because the fundamental is speaking, nothing really changed
on bitcoins specifically. There are still buyers, but I think
what's happening the market has been like sort of like
(17:04):
got into the bigcoin market as well. That's where we're
seeing what's happening with bitcoin. I think that's the sort
of aftermath what happened with all the coin crashes in
the October market crash, except.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Blimberg's Miyasha, and you've got to follow her all of
her work across crypto.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
It's fascinating.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
We thank her.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Meanwhile, coming up.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Apple set to make big changes to its iPhone designs.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
And its release schedule. We're on that next. This is
a BLUEBG Tech.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Apple Well, it's set to change up not just its
iPhone designs but also its release cycle next year, releasing
three high end phones next four, with mid tier phones
to follow six months later. The latest topic in this
weekend's power On newsletter. For more, Blueberg Senior Tech editor
Dana Wolman joins us, Dana, why is it so significant
that the timing would change?
Speaker 7 (18:01):
So?
Speaker 8 (18:01):
I think both consumers like us and also, frankly, Apple's
competitors have gotten used to Apple releasing new iPhones every
year like clockwork in the fall, and that has certain ramifications.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
One.
Speaker 8 (18:13):
I think consumers savvy consumers, and that's many of us
know not to necessarily replace an iPhone if they don't
have to in the months preceding what they assume will
be the launch. And Apple's competitors have moved up the
launches of their flag flagship phones, often to over the summer,
sort of getting a jump on Apple. So this would
be a big change for the company if it does
(18:34):
indeed turn to a strategy where it releases new products
throughout the year, as opposed to concentrating these really powerhouse
launches in one particular season.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Season, often towards the holiday season. But now they're trying
to drip feed a little bit more day now. And
what's interesting is that we are expecting some really seismic
changes to the actual phone itself.
Speaker 8 (18:56):
Yes, absolutely, And this comes on the heels of Apple
introducing the iPhone Air, which Mark German said in his
newsletter really feels like a test case for something even
more ambitious, which would be Apple's upcoming foldable phone, And
that would be just the first of several new changes
to Apple's iPhone line and really just coming as part
(19:17):
of a larger what seems like a larger spate of
product launches. I think consumers to some extent have gotten
used to long lulls between Apple's product launches, and I
think the launches now are going to be more frequent
and just more numerous. It does seem like Apples in
a period of launching more stuff, in some cases more
ambitious products than perhaps consumers have come to expect.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
And there must have been economies of scale to a
certain extent of having one big event with all the
marketing prowess around it and everyone to go and digest
rather than this constant drip feed. Was that why initially
it all came one big, particular wow moment.
Speaker 8 (19:57):
I think that is certainly part of it, and I
think the holiday timing is no coincidence. As Mark wrote
in his newsletter, there were certain downsides, of course, as well,
to this strategy. It sounds like it puts some strain
on various teams inside Apple, from marketing to engineering, and
also concentrated revenue in a certain part of the year,
(20:17):
which is not ideal for the company. And it sounds
like this new strategy is intended to address a number
of those pain points. And I didn't even mention the
impact that those kind of concentrated launches might have on
some of Apple's suppliers, but Mark did mention that as
well in this weekend's newsletter.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Okay, and so well, Broady, who do you think the
competition is that they've had to really align themselves. I
just think of this season that's just gone almost to
front run Apple. We had Google with its announcements just
weeks before.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Samsung often tries to do it.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Is that really where some of the competitive spaces come from.
Speaker 8 (20:50):
Yes, and certainly I have a very US centric point
of view. So here in the US, those would be
Apple's biggest competitors on the smartphone front. And then there's
a whole of other competitors in China, which is a
huge critical market for Apple. And and that's a market
where Apple has you know, sort of plateaued a bit
and has seen rising competition from domestic players. So it
(21:15):
does have a lot of competition in different regions and
on different fronts and at different price points. I would add,
not all of its competition is at the premium end.
There are a whole bunch of brands, especially in Asia,
that are making devices that are quite aggressively priced.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Well, said Dana Woman. Great to get the contacts. We
thank you. Now it's time for talking tech and first up.
Shares of Chinese giant c ATL fell from a major
shareholder moved to cut its steak in the company. The
latest pressure facing the energy storage maker as reports grow
that the US rold makers are actually pushing to cut
impults of Chinese made Brigg components, which could hit sentiment
for c ATL further. August Sanley wrote plus Google a meta,
(21:53):
They're among those who have delayed their role out of
some sea Internet cables stayed to run through the Red Sea.
Now this is but it's tensions and heightened security threats
have made roots more dangerous and complicated for commercial vessels.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
The delays are said to be throttling.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
The supply of much needed broadband in underserved countries. Now
coming up, Ramp CEO Eric Glyman joins us to talk
about the startup's latest funning round as its valuation jumps again.
This is Bloomberg Tech. Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech. Let's
(22:30):
check in on these markets. It's a big week. It's
our super Bowl. It is in video earnings coming on Wednesday.
But we're just languishing, just flat on the day as
we build up to that all important macro event, let's
call it. We're off by about a tenth of a percent.
Is people try to dissect what we're going to hear
from the key job supports as well what we're actually
going to get in terms of data the FED. But
at the moment, stocks retreating bonds dollar rising a little bit.
Let's move on to the individual stops that I want
(22:51):
you to keep an eye on, though, because Alphabet higher
four percent high, it's really sustaining some of the NASDAK
today in large part because Basha Hawaway's been a buyer.
Huge amount almost five billion dollars worth of Alphabet shares
stocked up by Berkshire have the way we got in
the thirteen F filings new although in video we looked
for thirty F filings coming from Peter Teel. His macro
fund completely sold out of his position. Look, it's only
(23:14):
one hundred million dollars worth, not five point eight billion dollars.
We've seen soft bankhof flow the previous week. Nevertheless, people
either making the most of the share price rise, booking
in profits or allocating to different types of AI trade.
We're seeing Dell off by six percent though some big
moves coming from that stock today along with HP, along
with oempers, largely because Morgan Stanley is worrying about sluggish
(23:34):
demand and more broadly the fact that the price of
memory tips is going higher it's going to be impacting
some of the margins. Dell a significant seller and the
double downgrade we got from Morgan Stanley. But let's talk
in the private markets now, because we've got some big
news because corporate spending management platform RAMP, it's got a
new valuation and it's big. It's thirty two billion dollars
comes after a three hundred million dollar primary financing round
(23:56):
and an employee tender offer. Marks another huge jump in
the start up value in a short period of time.
RAMP CEO Eric Lyman joining us now. So the money,
why do you need it?
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Eric?
Speaker 9 (24:07):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Well, a couple of things.
Speaker 9 (24:09):
First, thank you so much for having me today, and
what is a joy? We're incredibly excited to raise the
signs for a couple of reasons. First, the business is
growing even faster at scale. Ramp's customer base and the
revenue we're doing has more than doubled over the past year.
And we find the times we're living in right now,
the opportunity to invest in bringing AI to businesses around
(24:30):
the world to automate expense reports make it easier to
run a business and also invest furthers in this growth
made it an easy choice to invest and serve more
customers faster.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Okay, because there has been so much fits and starts
of how much Generative II is actually leading to productivity.
Many worrying about the ninety five percent of pilots that
aren't working according to MIT.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
So what's working for you?
Speaker 3 (24:50):
How are you showing that this is really building productivity
and or time management allocation where people can do the
work they want to do, not just file expense reports.
Speaker 9 (24:59):
Something that so unique about RAMP as we measure our
own success by how much less money we've helped customer spend,
and what we find is that the average customer that
adopts RAMP is able to reduce their spend by about
five percent per year, and the media and customer using
RAMP is growing their revenue by about twelve percent per year,
which is more than double the US national average. I
think that uniqueness on ROI, on actually showing companies where
(25:23):
they can cut out spend, how they can automate expenses,
separate us, and I would argue makes us part of
that five percent of in that study where people are
finding is actually very very useful and.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
They actually demanding real detail. I loved some of the
notes that I got that your treasury agents moved five
point five million dollars of idle cash into four percent investments.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Your policy agent.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Prevented five hundred eleven thousand out of policy transactions. Is
that the granularity that people want to see?
Speaker 9 (25:48):
Yes, it is because I think for a lot of companies,
really they're looking to understand. Okay, I know that time
is money. If you're a company, every hour that you're
paying someone, let's say, to do their expense reports, is
an hour that they're not selling the next customer, reporting
on the news, whatever really drives value to that business
and ramping able to show this was attempted to spend
that on a different type of program would have gone through.
(26:10):
This is time your people would have been doing these
low value tasks instead, that's automated. The spend didn't occur
in the first place. The categorization is done for you
makes a real difference. And for a CFO, I think
is really all that matters. It's about the bottom line
and that's what we deliver.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
And it matters to the CEO because they want time
allocated in a different way. I saw that Brett Taylor
of Sierra and also the chairman of open AI was
quoted saying, you know his talent and therefore better placed
to be working on the agency wants to build, not
filing at Spenser Sports. But but you talk about that
twelve percent average revenue growth your customer base. Is that
because you are serving companies like Sierra startups rather than
(26:48):
the Fortune five hundred or the bigger kind of companies
that perhaps don't have the revenue growth that startups do.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
It's a great question.
Speaker 9 (26:54):
First, you know, I like to believe the most disciplined
and well run companies, of course, will be adopting we
think the most cutting edge tools in the market, which
is ramp that helps people just run leaner. But I
think the majority of our customers, by a long shot,
are actually traditional businesses farms, nonprofits, restaurants, hospitals, traditional businesses
(27:15):
that you would not expect in many ways to be
cutting edge adopters for them. They're looking for easier to
do expense reports. You know you might be used to.
You know, it's the worst out of your month doing
expenses for them. They tap a card, it does itself.
They upload an invoice. Our ocr will go and automatically
categorize the transaction, set the payment date to the data
to actually due, so you're not losing a dollar out
(27:37):
in interest and then categorizing the transaction for you. And
so I think you know when you look at the
type of businesses, these are leaders like CBRE, Shopify, the
Boys and Girls Clubs of America, businesses of all shapes
and sizes. I actually think are looking, especially in these times,
get more from every dollar an hour.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Your venture backers are a who's who lists. Basically light
speed has led this financing. But you've got co to
of an air thrive. We've got fans one so many
of them continuing to back you. But I want to
go to the talent side, because there was an opportunity
for your employees to tender their shares. How many did
or how many are holding on thinking thirty two billion
isn't the end of it.
Speaker 9 (28:12):
It's people at RAMP are very very excited about the momentum.
I mean, just to give you some context, RAMP is
now larger than the media and publicly traded SaaS company,
and our gross profit, which is a great measure of
our profitability, is growing ten times as fast, and so
no doubt, I think people are very very excited. There's
a lot more to deliver. The process is ongoing. But
(28:34):
for us, whether an employee chooses to sell or not
to sell. It's very valuable, especially in building a public company,
to know that you have the option that you can
say yes or no to selling some shares. And we
think that's a great thing.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Building a public company.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
Will address that timeline next time, Ram ceo Eric Clyman's
got to catch a flight. But it's been so good
to have you in the show. Thank you very much. Indeed, meanwhile,
coming up, go back to the markets for Fionnas and
Cultus City Index, Scena market analyst.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
No, we'll all thinking about as in video results.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
That's next.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
This is Bloomberg Tech. The pressure on Tech, well.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
It's coming as traders are suddenly getting more selective about
the AI beneficiaries.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Two stocks that show the.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Divergence a micro core Weave and Micron now shares of
compute provider care Weave as you see, down forty four
percent in a month, while Micron has seen a twenty
four percent rise on demand for its memory chips.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Bloomberg Execut's reporter.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
Com and Ryanicky has been writing about what seems to
be suddenly some discernment coming from the investor base. Let's
take call Weave first and foremost, it's still much higher
than it's IPO. But why are we suddenly seeing a
bit more pressure on the stock.
Speaker 10 (29:52):
Yeah, so we've really switched from a capex discussion back
to an ROI return on investment discussion, and traders are
really looking for the ROI. They want to see that
all of the spending on AI is paying off and
that it's really making a difference to companies, either top
line or bottom line. And so with core Weave, that's
a little bit of the concern. You know, they're spending
(30:13):
a lot, are they actually seeing a return on investment?
And then the other thing with coreve is that they're
financing a lot of their growth with debt, and so
those the difference in balance sheet is something that's also
really coming into focus here with traders saying, you know,
even though they grew revenue, I think they doubled.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
It in the last quarter, that debt is an.
Speaker 10 (30:30):
Issue and they just want to make sure that it's
going to be you know, okay going forward.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Yeah, the same sort of concerns.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Nervousness crept in when Meta sold thirty billion dollars of bonds,
but then Alphabet gets a pass, they sold debt and
we're seeing Amazon come to the market as well. Today.
I'm interested then on the halves because Mike Cron look
memory flying off the shelves. It seems as though their
share price is rocketed this year totally.
Speaker 10 (30:53):
And it's really interesting because it's it's all of this
demand that we hear about, right, there's incredible demand. People
are making these huge forecasts, but it's really balancing it
with the other pieces of the puzzle on the balance sheet,
and I think that's why we're seeing Micron do so
well as opposed to Oracle. Remember had that huge spike
when it said it had this incredible revenue forecast. But
as it's taken on more debt and some of those
(31:15):
other things have shifted, it's sold off all of.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
That huge jump.
Speaker 10 (31:18):
So I mean, as you said, Alphabet getting a big jump,
this yame, I mean Berkshire Hathaway's stake off, so probably
ducing that. But we're just seeing a huge sort of
diversion in the names that people are flocking to and
then selling off.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
We want to know who's got the margin and who's
got the capital to be able to afford all the investment.
It's so good. Your writing's always brilliant common rhinicky. We
appreciate it. Meanwhile, more on the AI anxiety in the
markets that are just skittish ahead of Nvidia's numbers, fas
and cultures with us in City Index Financial Markets senior.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Analysts, we just come off this conversation in common.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Where people are deciding that they would perhaps sell some
of their previous winners and certainly ones that have taken
on a lot of debt.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Is that something you'll say, yes.
Speaker 11 (32:02):
I think we are seeing that investors are becoming more
selective over where they want to invest as far as
the AI trade is concerned. I mean, previously it had
just sort of been invested in AI and anything that
really mentioned AI seem to be a winner. But I
think whereas we we're sort of seeing this AI trade mature,
(32:22):
investors are taking their time to become more selective, questioning,
you know, how this is going to be monetized, what
can actually be how it will be used, rather than
just jumping on the AI trade more broadly.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Should they be questioning in video.
Speaker 11 (32:40):
That's a great question. I mean, you know, it's very
much in focus for our clients. This is you know,
one of the key earnings or the key earning I
would say each season. And obviously we have seen you know,
the likes of soft Bank leeder Thals selling out entirely
of then the video holdings. I do think there is
that this is a litmus tech. You know, can the
(33:01):
chip maker continue powering the AI rally that's really you know,
defined the broader market tech tech rally this year. I
think there are some reasons to be positive there. You know,
we heard from CEO Huang in October that there's four
hundred billion dollars worth of orders for chips that are
very much at the heart of this AI boom, so
that is a strong order book. But obviously, at the
(33:24):
same time, we have seen really impressive rally in this
share price, and we know that growth is strong but slowing.
But I think broadly speaking, I think it will be
fair to say that there is potential for that AI
rally to still continue to run further. There are concerns
obviously about that circular deals around one trillion circular deals
(33:45):
that we've been seeing. I think that's what the market's
nervous about. So, you know, any insight into that I
think would be helpful.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
What about the concentration that comes with n Video. I
think it was last earnings report about thirty nine percent
of orders are coming from just two key hyperscalers. Is
that something that people are worrying about, not only the
secularity of deals, but the over reliance I'm just say
a few players.
Speaker 11 (34:07):
Yeah, I think that is going to be again, you know,
remaining a point of concern. As you mentioned, if you've
got sort of you know, fewer customers or fewer big clients,
then obviously there is a risk that is attached to that.
So you know, any broadening out of that is going
to be good news as far as the stock is concerned.
And obviously, you know, we are saying that the market
(34:28):
is nervous, and I think we do see this every
time we come to Nvidia earnings in recent quarters, that
there is a little bit of nervousness surrounding the numbers.
And I think that does come with reason. You can't
just jump blindly into a trade, but I think there
is still reason to be positive.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
Can you balance, therefore, just the level of rationality in
the market right now, and whether you give credence to
the worries over a bubble or whether actually this is
just how growth is likely to continue. Yeah, do you know.
Speaker 11 (34:59):
I mean, as you point out, there have been so
many discussions surrounding are we in bubble territory comparisons.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
To the dot com era?
Speaker 11 (35:08):
But you know, I think that the market is still
acting rationally. It is still questioning whether you know, these
are valuations which are acceptable. And I think that does
point to a market which, as I said, is acting rationally,
which does go against that bubble narrative. But I think,
(35:30):
you know, we do need to be moving this forward
as well and questioning, you know, how will this be monetized,
will demand actually be met? You know, what are the
strains that could appear? So I think that is the
signs that the market is right asking the right questions.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
They're asking those questions around the equity side. What about
the bond market offerings that we're seeing coming thick and fast.
How much you're seeing just a desire to begain AAI
exposure from names like an Amazon that hasn't sold dollar
dormandy and debt in three years.
Speaker 11 (36:00):
Yeah, So this is really interesting and I think it
does point to this.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Sort of almost insatiable demand.
Speaker 11 (36:08):
I think that you know, there are reasons to be
cautious and again, you know, going back to that idea
of being making sure you question investments before jumping in
is always a good idea. And I think, you know,
creating these these the bond sort of aspect of this
trade is quite an interesting take on it.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
And one that will be following closely any cause. On crypto, ah, do.
Speaker 11 (36:33):
You know, Crypto is a really interesting one at the moment.
You know, I think we saw that rejection last week
about one oh seven level, but I think you know
the fact that we've taken out some really key technical levels.
The fifty week SMA was one that I was watching
very closely. We're seeing that that institutional demand has really faded.
(36:53):
Long term sellers, long term holders are selling, So I
think there's a lot of reason to be cautious.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
That said, you know, I think the levels.
Speaker 11 (37:01):
That we're holding around at the moment, that's ninety three thousand,
I think as long as that holds, and there could
be potential if we see institutional demand return for a
move higher. But I think, you know, the market still
feels a bit fragile after that massive liquidation of an
in early October, which is causing that reason for caution we.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Like you're talking technicals on simple moving averages. We appreciate
it for Ona Sinkotta, as City and x stay well.
Coming up, Ford strikes to deal with Amazon to sell
used cars on the e commerce website. We'll talk about
the reason and the impact on other online car dealers.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
That's next. This is a Bloomberg tech.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
Ford seaming up with Amazon to sell it's used vehicles
directly through the e commerce trant, becoming the second major
automator after Hyundai, to list cars on massive online retailer.
Let's get more, Brie Exalter reporter Keith Norton. So, Hono
went first. Now Ford is doing it? And am I
going to Amazon dot com and finding my forward there
or have they got other areas in which I'm gonna
(38:15):
be able to navigate?
Speaker 12 (38:17):
Yeah? So I mean it's certified used vehicles from Ford.
Initially Handai does new vehicles through Amazon, and yeah, it
is your very familiar, you know, add to my cart
kind of Amazon experience. You can do the financing, you
can browse the site and pick your car, and then
you pick it up from a dealer. You do the
final paperwork at the dealer. You can do a test
(38:39):
drive at the dealer if you'd like to as well.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
What's interesting is that it did have an impact on CarMax,
on Kavana, on others that are selling used cars and
used vehicles. How much of a significant player do you
think Amazon could become?
Speaker 12 (38:52):
Yeah, I mean they are Amazon, right, so if they
really get into this and that is their goal, they
could become a very significan player. So you saw those
two carbon or carmets dropped initially on the news, although
carvan is back up again. So you know, I think
it does stimulate interest in the category of online car buying,
(39:13):
which a lot of consumers, you know, it sounds good
to them because it reduces the hassle, reduces the time.
It's the sort of no haggle, one price selling. A
lot of people like that option as well. So it
is something that has promised.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
What about new vehicles? Would they dip that toe.
Speaker 12 (39:30):
That Yeah, I mean that's kind of what Ford was
telling me. You know, they're going to see how it
goes with this certified used program. And you know, these
are cars that receive multiplaying inspections. They have a manufacturer's
warranty of up to a year and twelve thousand miles
on some of them, so it is sort of new
car light, if you will. So if that goes well,
(39:54):
they may do as Hyundai is doing and sell new
cars on the site as well.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
And mess Keith Norton is a great story. Thanks for sharing.
It's a busy day for Amazon more broadly, as it
announced its first dollar denominated bond sale in three years.
It aims to raise twelve billion dollars a six part
debt offering. The mex expense of Soaper is here to
explain why Amazon might be tapping the debt market. Have
a feeling of something about data.
Speaker 13 (40:17):
Centers, Yeah, exactly. They've been spending a lot on data
centers and this is more more fuel for that. They're
coming in a little lighter than some of their competitors
in terms of the amount they're looking to raise a
twelve billion. Others have raised thirty billion, twenty five billion
when we look at like Oracle and Google and Meta.
(40:37):
So they're coming in a little bit light. But that
also might just be an indication that they have more
cash flow available to keep these investments going on a
running basis, and they're looking at one hundred and fifty
billion in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
Onex wow, and twelve billion is but a bit of
a drop in the ocean in that respect.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
But I can understand when you're able to sell forty
a debt a just a percentage point.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Over theoretical US Treasury is it looks like a relatively
cheap way of financing some of these big names. But Spencer,
where have we understood where the big expense is coming
full from Amazon in terms of the data center one.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Hundred and fifty billion.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
Is it going into the land, Is it going into
the infrastructure? Is it going to building their own chips
as well?
Speaker 2 (41:16):
But a bit more.
Speaker 13 (41:17):
Yeah, it's going into all of the above, and they
can't build them fast enough. And a big consideration is
still power, you know, is still once they build these
facilities where they have the you know, sufficient energy to
power them. So yes, it's it is a race, and
they just want to make sure that they have the
capital available that take care take advantage of any opportunities
(41:41):
as they come.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
It feels hard, I'm sure for those that have recently
been said that they're being like go from the company though.
Speaker 13 (41:48):
Just yeah, of course, you know, Amazon recently laid off
you know, more than ten thousand workers, and yes, but
you're just going to see them constantly recalibrating. It's such
a vast business and they have so many you know,
operating lines that some are getting more efficient because of AI,
(42:09):
and they're letting people go, but then they're going to
keep investing in hiring in the artificial intelligence race to
make sure that that they're keeping up with their peers.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
And briefly talking of AI race, it looks as though
finally Jeff Bezos might becoming a CEO at least a
co CEO again. Project Prometheus has been reported on the
New York Times, So we could be launching a startup.
Speaker 13 (42:30):
Yeah, that's very interesting report, and it also just highlights
how even Bezos has to diversify in the AI race,
you know, because when these kind of technologies emerge, there's
always a question of you know, you have these big
established companies that can throw a lot of money at it,
but they also have all of these encumbrances in terms
(42:50):
of their existing operations and will that you know, is
it better to have a pure place startup looking at
artificial intelligence inclusively to plow ahead. And so it is
interesting to see him going going solo with a new
a new artificial intelligence startup.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
Yeah reports that it's going to have six billion dollars
out the gates and it's AI for engineering and manufacturing
of computers, automobiles, and spacecraft. We know we liked Blue Origin. Meanwhile,
bluebgg Spencer Sofa, thanks so much for breaking it all down.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
Now that's it for this edition of Blomberg Tech.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
Do not forget to check out our podcast and on
the terminal, as well as online on Apple, Spotify, an iHeart.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
This is Bloomberg Tech.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Bloomberg Tech is live
from coast to coast with Caroline Hyde in New York
and Eva Though in San Francisco.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
This is Bloomberg Tech coming up.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
In Vidia selloff, SoftBank isn't the only company exiting the
AI MVP as a shareholder. Peter Teal's hedge fund offloads
its entire position.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Details from a thirteen F filing, plus a crypto market
sell off shows.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
No sign of easing and some of the riskiest tokens.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
They're bearing the brunt of it.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
And Amazon is seeking to raise about twelve billion dollars
through a debt offering an industry wide race to build
AI infrastructure.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
But first we check in on the markets that have
been under pressure.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
We are once again questioning AI valuations. We're checking some
of the biggest winners and whether or not we're taking
money off the table. We're off flat on the day
on the NASAK one hundred. More broadly, but it's been
a volatile session thus far, as we've tried to dissect
who wins from some of the purchases, Alphabet being key
among them, and who's being sold off. Let's just dig
into some individual movers that I want to shine a
light on because thirteen f filings they tell you an awful
(01:12):
lot who is being bought. Alphabet is being backed by
Berkshire Hathaway. We're up five percent, a significant move that
helps them as that one hundred more broadly be training
flat even though sentiments seems to be shifting to the downside.
Sentiment on the downside. For a video ahead of its
earnings later this week, we understand that another key investor
that everyone watches this one Peter Teel of loading his
(01:34):
entire holding from his macro fund his hedge fund in
in video. We want to get to both of these
key stories because the Teal macro fund, as we know,
has been one that we really do focus in. At
the moment, it does still hold onto Microsoft and a
reduced stake in Tesla we understand as its main bets
all according to that filing, we want to dig into
it with a hedge fund. Reporter Emma Palmer, Now, look,
(01:57):
this is someone that we always follow. Peter Teel made
his foun by backing meta artists formally known as Facebook,
and now he takes key bets on publicly traded companies.
But while offload one hundred million dollars worth of Nvidia.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Yes, it's especially interesting given how concentrated his portfolio is
really only four or five stocks, So when we see
a rotation in this portfolio, it holds a lot of meaning,
even though the position itself was only about one hundred
million dollars, which in our hedge fund world isn't that
much when we look at the exposure, So you know,
this may be a reflection of a lot of the
cautions and concerns that we're seeing around the AI space. Valuations,
(02:34):
the amount of money that's just flooding into the space,
concerns people have about the circular nature of investments and
money in this industry, and so this could be an
expression of that. Typically, when you see a concentrated portfolio
and a shift that's notable, like editing a position entirely,
then it often suggests a directional and concerning What's.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Interesting, though, is that the overall fund in terms of
deployed money into equities gone from an excess of two
hundred million down to about only about seventy million currently deployed,
and we understand the coll so that he is still
making big bets on startups. We just had Substrate on
a couple of weeks ago, the CEO that he's now
backing to take on ASML and take on some of
the chip design and equipment makers in particular Hammer. So
(03:18):
do we think in similarity to SoftBank they exited five
point eight billion dollars worth of Nvidia, but that was about.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Having money to be able to reallocate other areas the
AI ecosystem.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
So when we look at these startup investors, you know,
they put a lot of money into the pre IPO space,
into these companies before they make a lot of their
gains post IPO, and so you know how they think
about the startup space and then how they think about
the public market space could be expressed a little bit
differently when we look at SoftBank, to your points, they
did make that rotation to invest more into open AI.
(03:52):
So the thirteen f's give us some clarity and how
these money managers think and what they do, but really
doesn't show us everything. It doesn't show us intention now,
it doesn't show us shorts, and it doesn't show us
other types of hedges against a position. So we do
have a limited point of view. We'll take that because
hedge ferns are so secretive and so private. But it
is somewhat of a very specific insight.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Great context.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
What is the context around Alphabet and the buying by
Boatsha Hathaway.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Yes, so when we look at Alphabet, a huge position
for them eighteen million dollars eighteen million shares worth about
five billion dollars as of the end of the third quarter.
Now that means it is the tenth biggest holding for
Berkshire Hathaway. Sizeable, but it also gives you a sense
of just how much money this firm puts to work.
Its biggest holding is still Apple. They did trim that
(04:43):
steak by fifteen percent, but it still holds about a
quarter of the portfolio exposure. So it's likely less of
a directional view, perhaps more of a rotation of the
portfolio to manage its exposure. But when we see a
brand new position and a one like in Alphabet Google,
then it does suggest that there might be you know,
(05:05):
a lot of bullishness as to that stock.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Love having the hedge fun perspective from your hammer across
our world of Techema Palmer, we appreciate it. Meanwhile, all
eyes on in video fundamentals as a company reports earnings.
On Wednesday, Chris Larkin over e Trade from Augustanley, saying
that the monthly jobs report would normally dominate the week's
economic calendar, but with the AI trade struggling the past
couple of weeks, in Video's earnings and once again looking
(05:28):
like a key piece of the market's momentum, puzzle here
to break it down in King, because look, we can
see companies and hedge funds maybe selling their entire holdings
of Invidio, but the fundamentals look pretty strong right now.
In it seems yeah.
Speaker 5 (05:43):
I mean, as you know, Caroline, we just had a
chat with Jensen in Washington a short time ago, and
what he was saying that that conference was like, hey,
I've got half a trillion dollars with the vorders coming
in the next few quarters. So on a fundamental basis,
at least from his perspective, thing to see here everything
is is kind of still heading up into the right.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
I mean extraordinary. We're anticipating what fifty five billion dollars
worth of overall sales coming on the quarter. In there
is areas where we could perhaps get a bit more granularity,
whether it's concentration of certain end users, but also whether
we're going to get any access to China.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
Yeah, I mean the concentration thing. They keep giving us
a number, and it hovers around sort of fifty percent
of their revenue at least for the data center business
coming from sort of Microsoft, Amazon and that sort of
those hyperscalers. I think investors would like to see that
number go down as a percentage and see that AI
was being spread throughout the economy. And as you mentioned
(06:42):
in video, keeps saying, look, we're not banking anything from China.
We still don't know how the geopolitics is going to
work out, but he has.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Been very clear on the opportunity of sovereign AI more broadly, so,
do you think you'll get more of a global perspective
there of other end users, whether it be governments or
whether it be other enterprises.
Speaker 5 (07:00):
Yeah, I mean, I think we've heard the sales pitch
over and over again. He's very good at the sales pitch,
as you know. And we've also seen a lot of
deals announced here there, and you know, Jensen's been all
over the world and that's all good, that's all trying
to create the sense of progress, but I think what
investors would like to see is that kind of translating
into something in terms of revenue that rivals one of
(07:22):
his big customers such as Microsoft, such as AWS such
as Meta Ian King.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Thank you very much. It's gonna be a busy week
as always for you.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Meanwhile, let's get the broader tech forew as investors, of
course are gearing up for a videos results this week.
Ja Jacobs is with US Blackrock, head of US equity ETFs.
You've had some phenomenal success with certain of the ETFs
you've offered this year alone in terms of actively managed
AI bets in video a key holding. How much of
an impact will it make on general sentiment do you think?
Speaker 6 (07:51):
I don't think there's going to be a ton of
change in sentiment based offf of short term earnings or
just any individual company. We see a lot of our
investors looking at artificial intelligence has just a long term
transformational theme that they want in their portfolios. Oftentimes this
is being funded by selling out of the tech sector
and allocating to AI. So frankly, for a lot of investors,
they haven't met changed their position in the mag seven.
(08:13):
They're just extending to get a broader exposure to the
entire artificial intelligence value chain.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
In the last couple of weeks, we have seen more
anxiety though, and you've seen downward pressure on some.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Of the biggest AI winners.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
JAY. Has that changed any of the types of conversations
you're having.
Speaker 6 (08:31):
No, I mean, we've continued to see inflows and to BAI,
which is our actively managed AI fund, and I think frankly,
a fair amount of investors out there have frankly been
looking for a buy the dip opportunity. They've seen this
trade continue with so much momentum over a couple of years.
Now that we're on basically the third year anniversary of
chat GBT coming out, a lot of investors have been
looking for a little bit of a buying opportunity to
(08:52):
get into the AI trade.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
What, therefore, are.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Some of the conversations you're having in terms of nuance,
because the nuance is constantly changing. Initially it was all
about return on AI. Then it was about whether or
not enterprises are really using them effectively, whether the pilots
are working. What are the types of conversations that you're
having about to the upside down the downside when it
comes to your actively managed AI trade.
Speaker 6 (09:14):
Well, we're seeing a lot of investors ask about kind
of what's going on beyond the MAG seven. There's been
a fair amount of discussions about data centers, about power infrastructure,
about some of the early adopters and artificial intelligence. So
a lot of that nuance is really about looking across
the entire value chain for opportunities, not just concentrating all
of the activity around the MAG seven.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
So when you're looking at BAI, I think it's about
seven billion dollars in active in assets under management there
where are they managing to play out the entirety of
the AI trade Because, as you say, much of the
value has been gained in AI infrastructure bets, but that's
broadening out now, Well, that's right.
Speaker 6 (09:51):
I think a lot of the exposure is looking at
that AI infrastructure trade that's semiconductors, but really broadly looking
across the semiconductor spectrum, that's looking at data centers. We
have some power infrastructure names in the fund. I think
as we continue to see AI evolve, it's going to
move from this CAPEX heavy infrastructure build out into more
of the models that are generating revenue. As you see
(10:12):
more adoption and I think we're starting to see that
in some of the earnings now about how many tokens
are being processed by some of the largest large language models.
That we're seeing a lot more companies talk about adopting
AI and their business practices. So I think over time,
over the next couple of years, we will see a
shift in the positioning from the infrastructure layer to the
model's data and applications layer of the AI value chain.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
When though you do hear headline risk SoftBank selling its
entire stake and Nvidia, Peter Tel Macro Funds selling its
entire steak and in Vidia, do you suddenly get a
load more calls? Do you suddenly get a little bit
more of a questioning of the circularity of deals that
we've had of late.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
No, that hasn't been the case.
Speaker 6 (10:55):
And I think it's because you can look at kind
of the near term noise about who's buying or selling
or some you know, very short term earnings. The long
term trend of this theme has only been gaining stem
and so I think a lot of our investors really
look at it as has there been a structural shift
here or not? And oftentimes if you're looking at thirteen
f filings or just headlines. It could just be repositioning
(11:16):
within the value chain. It doesn't represent a lesser bet
on artificial intelligence as a whole. So we continue to
have a ton of conviction. Our clients have not been
terribly concerned about headlines. It's really about kind of the
continued adoption of artificial intelligence that's been driving so much
of the interest in this fond Okay.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
So maybe a buying opportunity. What about some of the
cellar that you've seen in crypto. Of course significant flows
have come into your ETF when it comes to the
Bitcoin exposure, but that's come back of late. It must
be said, how is that feeling sentiment wise?
Speaker 6 (11:48):
You know, kind of similar. I mean this fond ibid
is still up nearly double since we launched it just
last January, so I think, you know a lot of
early people are still quite excited. And then what's been
changing is there's been growing of availability of ibit. So
some of the major wealth platforms in the United States,
which represent trillions of dollars of assets, have just enabled
their advisors to be able to buy ibit, and so frankly,
(12:10):
for a lot of people who are just getting into
the ecosystem. They're quite thrilled that they get to be
able to get in off of highs as they start
to think about allocating as a more structural position in
people's portfolios.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Jjks a black Root. Great to check in with you,
Thank you very much. Indeed, today, who are coming up? Well,
we're just talking about crypto. It's supposed to be crypto's
year with an administration in the White House that was
more friendly to it. So why is it the digital
coins have been foiling? We'll have more on that next.
Will just check in on Amazon. We're going cross asset
for you because we're down one point nine percent on Amazon.
(12:43):
But that's the equity trade. The fact is it's selling
a six part bond sale. At the moment, it's first
US delominated sale in at least three years, up to
twelve billion dollars worth forty year debt.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Are just a percentage point.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Also over where theoretical US treasuries are trade. They're cashing
in on the debt market, looking to put into data centers.
It would seem from New York there's a Bloomberg tech.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Crypto. It's in sell off mode.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Still, we're currently off for the month thirteen percent. On Bitcoin,
it's down twenty five percent thereabouts from its highs of
one hundred and twenty six thousand dollars where it hit
back in October. Ethereum, as you see, has been held
harder off by twenty percent. And look the smaller crypto Dogecoin,
which of course was initially set up as a joke,
it's also down fifteen percent in the last month alone,
(13:33):
as people start to question really whether we can hold
on to the gains and certainly some of the leverage
that's been built into the system. Let's talk about all
of this with Blue Moost crypto reporter Miaoshen. Now, what
is it that is driving the selling and the sentiment
lower because we all thought the administration's adoption of crypto
(13:54):
in many ways would just continue the asset classes rise.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 7 (13:59):
I think what we're seeing today in the crypto market
is that it's still recovering from what happened in October,
where we saw this larger liquidation event happened in the
crypto If you look at like both institutional and retail investors,
we haven't seen any large firms coming out saying they
had any blow up and stuff like that. But it
does feel like sound trading shops, smaller ones might have
(14:21):
some issues. You can see that from the open interests
of perpetual futures market in crypto. The open interests hasn't
really recovered since the market crash in October. That tells
me something about sound trading shops may have had issues.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Yes, I mean, remind us what happened was October the
nineteenth thing? It was ever the course of a weekend,
just an awful lot of leverage got pulled out the
system because a sudden jarring move in cryptom and everyone
then had this sort of well they were margin called.
It would feel like, yes, why would we not have
heard of certain blow ups? So what could have therefore
been more broadly making everyone more nervous about training that's
(14:55):
going forward.
Speaker 7 (14:57):
I think we saw the number Obviously, the larger liquidation
numbers are in history. I think a couple of reasons
point into that. Obvious retailers are looking more leverage in
the space. That's why we're seeing more sort of like
cruidations events. The other thing, I think previously both most
of the future's tradings are happening on centralized exchanges like
(15:17):
finance and coin bits, right, so we can really tell.
So sometimes these numbers are more like murky. You don't
know exactly what happens when large liquidation events happen. But
today a lot of these tradings happens on Chin on
the blockchain directly, so there's more transparency. So the numbers
tend to look much bigger than previous cycles.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
I think we're looking at certain atf flows.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
They've been more than fifty billion since their creation, but we'
seen about two billion pulled out in the last couple
of months.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Where we think the most pain is it in bitcoin?
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Is it the larger areas or is it some of
the more sunning, riskier core old coins that have been
traded and whipsored a little harder?
Speaker 7 (15:53):
I think for sure from auto coins perspective, because you
can see that from the prices action, right, Like you
mentioned about those core not just doagecoin other like cryptocurrencies.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
During the market.
Speaker 7 (16:03):
Crash in October, sun Tooken's went down to almost zero,
which is crazy to think about, right. I think that
hurts especially retail investors because retail investors are those who
tend to buy a lot of auto coins, and they
got wiped out from that market crash, and right now
you just don't see a lot of demand from these
auto coins.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
But people are still buying, Like we just had J
Jacobs and Black Croc saying for many a pullback in
certain of their ets means people actually buy into it.
I'm seeing Michael Saylor, I mean obviously og crypto buyer
and treasury stocker upper of he's doubled down on.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
His digital asset treasury.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
It feels like so is he making the most of
lower bitcoin prices.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
I think it's a two different source.
Speaker 7 (16:43):
Right We're talking about the micro strategy micro sailors like
Bitcoin sort of like buyers, and then we have the
auto coin buyers. I think we need to separate this
to as to like driving forces. I think all the
bigcoins like because the fundamental is speaking, nothing really changed
on bitcoins specifically. There are still buyers, but I think
what's happening the market has been like sort of like
(17:04):
got into the bigcoin market as well. That's where we're
seeing what's happening with bitcoin. I think that's the sort
of aftermath what happened with all the coin crashes in
the October market crash, except.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Blimberg's Miyasha, and you've got to follow her all of
her work across crypto.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
It's fascinating.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
We thank her.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Meanwhile, coming up.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Apple set to make big changes to its iPhone designs.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
And its release schedule. We're on that next. This is
a BLUEBG Tech.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Apple Well, it's set to change up not just its
iPhone designs but also its release cycle next year, releasing
three high end phones next four, with mid tier phones
to follow six months later. The latest topic in this
weekend's power On newsletter. For more, Blueberg Senior Tech editor
Dana Wolman joins us, Dana, why is it so significant
that the timing would change?
Speaker 7 (18:01):
So?
Speaker 8 (18:01):
I think both consumers like us and also, frankly, Apple's
competitors have gotten used to Apple releasing new iPhones every
year like clockwork in the fall, and that has certain ramifications.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
One.
Speaker 8 (18:13):
I think consumers savvy consumers, and that's many of us
know not to necessarily replace an iPhone if they don't
have to in the months preceding what they assume will
be the launch. And Apple's competitors have moved up the
launches of their flag flagship phones, often to over the summer,
sort of getting a jump on Apple. So this would
be a big change for the company if it does
(18:34):
indeed turn to a strategy where it releases new products
throughout the year, as opposed to concentrating these really powerhouse
launches in one particular season.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Season, often towards the holiday season. But now they're trying
to drip feed a little bit more day now. And
what's interesting is that we are expecting some really seismic
changes to the actual phone itself.
Speaker 8 (18:56):
Yes, absolutely, And this comes on the heels of Apple
introducing the iPhone Air, which Mark German said in his
newsletter really feels like a test case for something even
more ambitious, which would be Apple's upcoming foldable phone, And
that would be just the first of several new changes
to Apple's iPhone line and really just coming as part
(19:17):
of a larger what seems like a larger spate of
product launches. I think consumers to some extent have gotten
used to long lulls between Apple's product launches, and I
think the launches now are going to be more frequent
and just more numerous. It does seem like Apples in
a period of launching more stuff, in some cases more
ambitious products than perhaps consumers have come to expect.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
And there must have been economies of scale to a
certain extent of having one big event with all the
marketing prowess around it and everyone to go and digest
rather than this constant drip feed. Was that why initially
it all came one big, particular wow moment.
Speaker 8 (19:57):
I think that is certainly part of it, and I
think the holiday timing is no coincidence. As Mark wrote
in his newsletter, there were certain downsides, of course, as well,
to this strategy. It sounds like it puts some strain
on various teams inside Apple, from marketing to engineering, and
also concentrated revenue in a certain part of the year,
(20:17):
which is not ideal for the company. And it sounds
like this new strategy is intended to address a number
of those pain points. And I didn't even mention the
impact that those kind of concentrated launches might have on
some of Apple's suppliers, but Mark did mention that as
well in this weekend's newsletter.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Okay, and so well, Broady, who do you think the
competition is that they've had to really align themselves. I
just think of this season that's just gone almost to
front run Apple. We had Google with its announcements just
weeks before.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Samsung often tries to do it.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Is that really where some of the competitive spaces come from.
Speaker 8 (20:50):
Yes, and certainly I have a very US centric point
of view. So here in the US, those would be
Apple's biggest competitors on the smartphone front. And then there's
a whole of other competitors in China, which is a
huge critical market for Apple. And and that's a market
where Apple has you know, sort of plateaued a bit
and has seen rising competition from domestic players. So it
(21:15):
does have a lot of competition in different regions and
on different fronts and at different price points. I would add,
not all of its competition is at the premium end.
There are a whole bunch of brands, especially in Asia,
that are making devices that are quite aggressively priced.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Well, said Dana Woman. Great to get the contacts. We
thank you. Now it's time for talking tech and first up.
Shares of Chinese giant c ATL fell from a major
shareholder moved to cut its steak in the company. The
latest pressure facing the energy storage maker as reports grow
that the US rold makers are actually pushing to cut
impults of Chinese made Brigg components, which could hit sentiment
for c ATL further. August Sanley wrote plus Google a meta,
(21:53):
They're among those who have delayed their role out of
some sea Internet cables stayed to run through the Red Sea.
Now this is but it's tensions and heightened security threats
have made roots more dangerous and complicated for commercial vessels.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
The delays are said to be throttling.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
The supply of much needed broadband in underserved countries. Now
coming up, Ramp CEO Eric Glyman joins us to talk
about the startup's latest funning round as its valuation jumps again.
This is Bloomberg Tech. Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech. Let's
(22:30):
check in on these markets. It's a big week. It's
our super Bowl. It is in video earnings coming on Wednesday.
But we're just languishing, just flat on the day as
we build up to that all important macro event, let's
call it. We're off by about a tenth of a percent.
Is people try to dissect what we're going to hear
from the key job supports as well what we're actually
going to get in terms of data the FED. But
at the moment, stocks retreating bonds dollar rising a little bit.
Let's move on to the individual stops that I want
(22:51):
you to keep an eye on, though, because Alphabet higher
four percent high, it's really sustaining some of the NASDAK
today in large part because Basha Hawaway's been a buyer.
Huge amount almost five billion dollars worth of Alphabet shares
stocked up by Berkshire have the way we got in
the thirteen F filings new although in video we looked
for thirty F filings coming from Peter Teel. His macro
fund completely sold out of his position. Look, it's only
(23:14):
one hundred million dollars worth, not five point eight billion dollars.
We've seen soft bankhof flow the previous week. Nevertheless, people
either making the most of the share price rise, booking
in profits or allocating to different types of AI trade.
We're seeing Dell off by six percent though some big
moves coming from that stock today along with HP, along
with oempers, largely because Morgan Stanley is worrying about sluggish
(23:34):
demand and more broadly the fact that the price of
memory tips is going higher it's going to be impacting
some of the margins. Dell a significant seller and the
double downgrade we got from Morgan Stanley. But let's talk
in the private markets now, because we've got some big
news because corporate spending management platform RAMP, it's got a
new valuation and it's big. It's thirty two billion dollars
comes after a three hundred million dollar primary financing round
(23:56):
and an employee tender offer. Marks another huge jump in
the start up value in a short period of time.
RAMP CEO Eric Lyman joining us now. So the money,
why do you need it?
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Eric?
Speaker 9 (24:07):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Well, a couple of things.
Speaker 9 (24:09):
First, thank you so much for having me today, and
what is a joy? We're incredibly excited to raise the
signs for a couple of reasons. First, the business is
growing even faster at scale. Ramp's customer base and the
revenue we're doing has more than doubled over the past year.
And we find the times we're living in right now,
the opportunity to invest in bringing AI to businesses around
(24:30):
the world to automate expense reports make it easier to
run a business and also invest furthers in this growth
made it an easy choice to invest and serve more
customers faster.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Okay, because there has been so much fits and starts
of how much Generative II is actually leading to productivity.
Many worrying about the ninety five percent of pilots that
aren't working according to MIT.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
So what's working for you?
Speaker 3 (24:50):
How are you showing that this is really building productivity
and or time management allocation where people can do the
work they want to do, not just file expense reports.
Speaker 9 (24:59):
Something that so unique about RAMP as we measure our
own success by how much less money we've helped customer spend,
and what we find is that the average customer that
adopts RAMP is able to reduce their spend by about
five percent per year, and the media and customer using
RAMP is growing their revenue by about twelve percent per year,
which is more than double the US national average. I
think that uniqueness on ROI, on actually showing companies where
(25:23):
they can cut out spend, how they can automate expenses,
separate us, and I would argue makes us part of
that five percent of in that study where people are
finding is actually very very useful and.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
They actually demanding real detail. I loved some of the
notes that I got that your treasury agents moved five
point five million dollars of idle cash into four percent investments.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Your policy agent.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Prevented five hundred eleven thousand out of policy transactions. Is
that the granularity that people want to see?
Speaker 9 (25:48):
Yes, it is because I think for a lot of companies,
really they're looking to understand. Okay, I know that time
is money. If you're a company, every hour that you're
paying someone, let's say, to do their expense reports, is
an hour that they're not selling the next customer, reporting
on the news, whatever really drives value to that business
and ramping able to show this was attempted to spend
that on a different type of program would have gone through.
(26:10):
This is time your people would have been doing these
low value tasks instead, that's automated. The spend didn't occur
in the first place. The categorization is done for you
makes a real difference. And for a CFO, I think
is really all that matters. It's about the bottom line
and that's what we deliver.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
And it matters to the CEO because they want time
allocated in a different way. I saw that Brett Taylor
of Sierra and also the chairman of open AI was
quoted saying, you know his talent and therefore better placed
to be working on the agency wants to build, not
filing at Spenser Sports. But but you talk about that
twelve percent average revenue growth your customer base. Is that
because you are serving companies like Sierra startups rather than
(26:48):
the Fortune five hundred or the bigger kind of companies
that perhaps don't have the revenue growth that startups do.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
It's a great question.
Speaker 9 (26:54):
First, you know, I like to believe the most disciplined
and well run companies, of course, will be adopting we
think the most cutting edge tools in the market, which
is ramp that helps people just run leaner. But I
think the majority of our customers, by a long shot,
are actually traditional businesses farms, nonprofits, restaurants, hospitals, traditional businesses
(27:15):
that you would not expect in many ways to be
cutting edge adopters for them. They're looking for easier to
do expense reports. You know you might be used to.
You know, it's the worst out of your month doing
expenses for them. They tap a card, it does itself.
They upload an invoice. Our ocr will go and automatically
categorize the transaction, set the payment date to the data
to actually due, so you're not losing a dollar out
(27:37):
in interest and then categorizing the transaction for you. And
so I think you know when you look at the
type of businesses, these are leaders like CBRE, Shopify, the
Boys and Girls Clubs of America, businesses of all shapes
and sizes. I actually think are looking, especially in these times,
get more from every dollar an hour.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Your venture backers are a who's who lists. Basically light
speed has led this financing. But you've got co to
of an air thrive. We've got fans one so many
of them continuing to back you. But I want to
go to the talent side, because there was an opportunity
for your employees to tender their shares. How many did
or how many are holding on thinking thirty two billion
isn't the end of it.
Speaker 9 (28:12):
It's people at RAMP are very very excited about the momentum.
I mean, just to give you some context, RAMP is
now larger than the media and publicly traded SaaS company,
and our gross profit, which is a great measure of
our profitability, is growing ten times as fast, and so
no doubt, I think people are very very excited. There's
a lot more to deliver. The process is ongoing. But
(28:34):
for us, whether an employee chooses to sell or not
to sell. It's very valuable, especially in building a public company,
to know that you have the option that you can
say yes or no to selling some shares. And we
think that's a great thing.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Building a public company.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
Will address that timeline next time, Ram ceo Eric Clyman's
got to catch a flight. But it's been so good
to have you in the show. Thank you very much. Indeed, meanwhile,
coming up, go back to the markets for Fionnas and
Cultus City Index, Scena market analyst.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
No, we'll all thinking about as in video results.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
That's next.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
This is Bloomberg Tech. The pressure on Tech, well.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
It's coming as traders are suddenly getting more selective about
the AI beneficiaries.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Two stocks that show the.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Divergence a micro core Weave and Micron now shares of
compute provider care Weave as you see, down forty four
percent in a month, while Micron has seen a twenty
four percent rise on demand for its memory chips.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Bloomberg Execut's reporter.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
Com and Ryanicky has been writing about what seems to
be suddenly some discernment coming from the investor base. Let's
take call Weave first and foremost, it's still much higher
than it's IPO. But why are we suddenly seeing a
bit more pressure on the stock.
Speaker 10 (29:52):
Yeah, so we've really switched from a capex discussion back
to an ROI return on investment discussion, and traders are
really looking for the ROI. They want to see that
all of the spending on AI is paying off and
that it's really making a difference to companies, either top
line or bottom line. And so with core Weave, that's
a little bit of the concern. You know, they're spending
(30:13):
a lot, are they actually seeing a return on investment?
And then the other thing with coreve is that they're
financing a lot of their growth with debt, and so
those the difference in balance sheet is something that's also
really coming into focus here with traders saying, you know,
even though they grew revenue, I think they doubled.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
It in the last quarter, that debt is an.
Speaker 10 (30:30):
Issue and they just want to make sure that it's
going to be you know, okay going forward.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Yeah, the same sort of concerns.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Nervousness crept in when Meta sold thirty billion dollars of bonds,
but then Alphabet gets a pass, they sold debt and
we're seeing Amazon come to the market as well. Today.
I'm interested then on the halves because Mike Cron look
memory flying off the shelves. It seems as though their
share price is rocketed this year totally.
Speaker 10 (30:53):
And it's really interesting because it's it's all of this
demand that we hear about, right, there's incredible demand. People
are making these huge forecasts, but it's really balancing it
with the other pieces of the puzzle on the balance sheet,
and I think that's why we're seeing Micron do so
well as opposed to Oracle. Remember had that huge spike
when it said it had this incredible revenue forecast. But
as it's taken on more debt and some of those
(31:15):
other things have shifted, it's sold off all of.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
That huge jump.
Speaker 10 (31:18):
So I mean, as you said, Alphabet getting a big jump,
this yame, I mean Berkshire Hathaway's stake off, so probably
ducing that. But we're just seeing a huge sort of
diversion in the names that people are flocking to and
then selling off.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
We want to know who's got the margin and who's
got the capital to be able to afford all the investment.
It's so good. Your writing's always brilliant common rhinicky. We
appreciate it. Meanwhile, more on the AI anxiety in the
markets that are just skittish ahead of Nvidia's numbers, fas
and cultures with us in City Index Financial Markets senior.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Analysts, we just come off this conversation in common.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Where people are deciding that they would perhaps sell some
of their previous winners and certainly ones that have taken
on a lot of debt.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Is that something you'll say, yes.
Speaker 11 (32:02):
I think we are seeing that investors are becoming more
selective over where they want to invest as far as
the AI trade is concerned. I mean, previously it had
just sort of been invested in AI and anything that
really mentioned AI seem to be a winner. But I
think whereas we we're sort of seeing this AI trade mature,
(32:22):
investors are taking their time to become more selective, questioning,
you know, how this is going to be monetized, what
can actually be how it will be used, rather than
just jumping on the AI trade more broadly.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Should they be questioning in video.
Speaker 11 (32:40):
That's a great question. I mean, you know, it's very
much in focus for our clients. This is you know,
one of the key earnings or the key earning I
would say each season. And obviously we have seen you know,
the likes of soft Bank leeder Thals selling out entirely
of then the video holdings. I do think there is
that this is a litmus tech. You know, can the
(33:01):
chip maker continue powering the AI rally that's really you know,
defined the broader market tech tech rally this year. I
think there are some reasons to be positive there. You know,
we heard from CEO Huang in October that there's four
hundred billion dollars worth of orders for chips that are
very much at the heart of this AI boom, so
that is a strong order book. But obviously, at the
(33:24):
same time, we have seen really impressive rally in this
share price, and we know that growth is strong but slowing.
But I think broadly speaking, I think it will be
fair to say that there is potential for that AI
rally to still continue to run further. There are concerns
obviously about that circular deals around one trillion circular deals
(33:45):
that we've been seeing. I think that's what the market's
nervous about. So, you know, any insight into that I
think would be helpful.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
What about the concentration that comes with n Video. I
think it was last earnings report about thirty nine percent
of orders are coming from just two key hyperscalers. Is
that something that people are worrying about, not only the
secularity of deals, but the over reliance I'm just say
a few players.
Speaker 11 (34:07):
Yeah, I think that is going to be again, you know,
remaining a point of concern. As you mentioned, if you've
got sort of you know, fewer customers or fewer big clients,
then obviously there is a risk that is attached to that.
So you know, any broadening out of that is going
to be good news as far as the stock is concerned.
And obviously, you know, we are saying that the market
(34:28):
is nervous, and I think we do see this every
time we come to Nvidia earnings in recent quarters, that
there is a little bit of nervousness surrounding the numbers.
And I think that does come with reason. You can't
just jump blindly into a trade, but I think there
is still reason to be positive.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
Can you balance, therefore, just the level of rationality in
the market right now, and whether you give credence to
the worries over a bubble or whether actually this is
just how growth is likely to continue. Yeah, do you know.
Speaker 11 (34:59):
I mean, as you point out, there have been so
many discussions surrounding are we in bubble territory comparisons.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
To the dot com era?
Speaker 11 (35:08):
But you know, I think that the market is still
acting rationally. It is still questioning whether you know, these
are valuations which are acceptable. And I think that does
point to a market which, as I said, is acting rationally,
which does go against that bubble narrative. But I think,
(35:30):
you know, we do need to be moving this forward
as well and questioning, you know, how will this be monetized,
will demand actually be met? You know, what are the
strains that could appear? So I think that is the
signs that the market is right asking the right questions.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
They're asking those questions around the equity side. What about
the bond market offerings that we're seeing coming thick and fast.
How much you're seeing just a desire to begain AAI
exposure from names like an Amazon that hasn't sold dollar
dormandy and debt in three years.
Speaker 11 (36:00):
Yeah, So this is really interesting and I think it
does point to this.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Sort of almost insatiable demand.
Speaker 11 (36:08):
I think that you know, there are reasons to be
cautious and again, you know, going back to that idea
of being making sure you question investments before jumping in
is always a good idea. And I think, you know,
creating these these the bond sort of aspect of this
trade is quite an interesting take on it.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
And one that will be following closely any cause. On crypto, ah, do.
Speaker 11 (36:33):
You know, Crypto is a really interesting one at the moment.
You know, I think we saw that rejection last week
about one oh seven level, but I think you know
the fact that we've taken out some really key technical levels.
The fifty week SMA was one that I was watching
very closely. We're seeing that that institutional demand has really faded.
(36:53):
Long term sellers, long term holders are selling, So I
think there's a lot of reason to be cautious.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
That said, you know, I think the levels.
Speaker 11 (37:01):
That we're holding around at the moment, that's ninety three thousand,
I think as long as that holds, and there could
be potential if we see institutional demand return for a
move higher. But I think, you know, the market still
feels a bit fragile after that massive liquidation of an
in early October, which is causing that reason for caution we.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Like you're talking technicals on simple moving averages. We appreciate
it for Ona Sinkotta, as City and x stay well.
Coming up, Ford strikes to deal with Amazon to sell
used cars on the e commerce website. We'll talk about
the reason and the impact on other online car dealers.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
That's next. This is a Bloomberg tech.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
Ford seaming up with Amazon to sell it's used vehicles
directly through the e commerce trant, becoming the second major
automator after Hyundai, to list cars on massive online retailer.
Let's get more, Brie Exalter reporter Keith Norton. So, Hono
went first. Now Ford is doing it? And am I
going to Amazon dot com and finding my forward there
or have they got other areas in which I'm gonna
(38:15):
be able to navigate?
Speaker 12 (38:17):
Yeah? So I mean it's certified used vehicles from Ford.
Initially Handai does new vehicles through Amazon, and yeah, it
is your very familiar, you know, add to my cart
kind of Amazon experience. You can do the financing, you
can browse the site and pick your car, and then
you pick it up from a dealer. You do the
final paperwork at the dealer. You can do a test
(38:39):
drive at the dealer if you'd like to as well.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
What's interesting is that it did have an impact on CarMax,
on Kavana, on others that are selling used cars and
used vehicles. How much of a significant player do you
think Amazon could become?
Speaker 12 (38:52):
Yeah, I mean they are Amazon, right, so if they
really get into this and that is their goal, they
could become a very significan player. So you saw those
two carbon or carmets dropped initially on the news, although
carvan is back up again. So you know, I think
it does stimulate interest in the category of online car buying,
(39:13):
which a lot of consumers, you know, it sounds good
to them because it reduces the hassle, reduces the time.
It's the sort of no haggle, one price selling. A
lot of people like that option as well. So it
is something that has promised.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
What about new vehicles? Would they dip that toe.
Speaker 12 (39:30):
That Yeah, I mean that's kind of what Ford was
telling me. You know, they're going to see how it
goes with this certified used program. And you know, these
are cars that receive multiplaying inspections. They have a manufacturer's
warranty of up to a year and twelve thousand miles
on some of them, so it is sort of new
car light, if you will. So if that goes well,
(39:54):
they may do as Hyundai is doing and sell new
cars on the site as well.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
And mess Keith Norton is a great story. Thanks for sharing.
It's a busy day for Amazon more broadly, as it
announced its first dollar denominated bond sale in three years.
It aims to raise twelve billion dollars a six part
debt offering. The mex expense of Soaper is here to
explain why Amazon might be tapping the debt market. Have
a feeling of something about data.
Speaker 13 (40:17):
Centers, Yeah, exactly. They've been spending a lot on data
centers and this is more more fuel for that. They're
coming in a little lighter than some of their competitors
in terms of the amount they're looking to raise a
twelve billion. Others have raised thirty billion, twenty five billion
when we look at like Oracle and Google and Meta.
(40:37):
So they're coming in a little bit light. But that
also might just be an indication that they have more
cash flow available to keep these investments going on a
running basis, and they're looking at one hundred and fifty
billion in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
Onex wow, and twelve billion is but a bit of
a drop in the ocean in that respect.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
But I can understand when you're able to sell forty
a debt a just a percentage point.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Over theoretical US Treasury is it looks like a relatively
cheap way of financing some of these big names. But Spencer,
where have we understood where the big expense is coming
full from Amazon in terms of the data center one.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Hundred and fifty billion.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
Is it going into the land, Is it going into
the infrastructure? Is it going to building their own chips
as well?
Speaker 2 (41:16):
But a bit more.
Speaker 13 (41:17):
Yeah, it's going into all of the above, and they
can't build them fast enough. And a big consideration is
still power, you know, is still once they build these
facilities where they have the you know, sufficient energy to
power them. So yes, it's it is a race, and
they just want to make sure that they have the
capital available that take care take advantage of any opportunities
(41:41):
as they come.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
It feels hard, I'm sure for those that have recently
been said that they're being like go from the company though.
Speaker 13 (41:48):
Just yeah, of course, you know, Amazon recently laid off
you know, more than ten thousand workers, and yes, but
you're just going to see them constantly recalibrating. It's such
a vast business and they have so many you know,
operating lines that some are getting more efficient because of AI,
(42:09):
and they're letting people go, but then they're going to
keep investing in hiring in the artificial intelligence race to
make sure that that they're keeping up with their peers.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
And briefly talking of AI race, it looks as though
finally Jeff Bezos might becoming a CEO at least a
co CEO again. Project Prometheus has been reported on the
New York Times, So we could be launching a startup.
Speaker 13 (42:30):
Yeah, that's very interesting report, and it also just highlights
how even Bezos has to diversify in the AI race,
you know, because when these kind of technologies emerge, there's
always a question of you know, you have these big
established companies that can throw a lot of money at it,
but they also have all of these encumbrances in terms
(42:50):
of their existing operations and will that you know, is
it better to have a pure place startup looking at
artificial intelligence inclusively to plow ahead. And so it is
interesting to see him going going solo with a new
a new artificial intelligence startup.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
Yeah reports that it's going to have six billion dollars
out the gates and it's AI for engineering and manufacturing
of computers, automobiles, and spacecraft. We know we liked Blue Origin. Meanwhile,
bluebgg Spencer Sofa, thanks so much for breaking it all down.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
Now that's it for this edition of Blomberg Tech.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
Do not forget to check out our podcast and on
the terminal, as well as online on Apple, Spotify, an iHeart.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
This is Bloomberg Tech.
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